This guy really needs to read Fr. Schmemann’s book Great Lent. In it, he would find that, at least in the Orthodox Church, Lent is not some somber time to be moaned and groaned over but a time of joy, though tempered, a “bright sadness” as he calls it.

Relying on Schmemann futher, Lent is not something we should endure just “to get it over with” but should serve as the school for how we live a repentant life.

BTW, father, could one argue that the asceticism mentioned in the Pauline corpus is “his” translation of the “repent” (metanoiete) of the Gospels?

Thanks.

As for the technical difference between “fasting” and “abstinence,” of course I am aware of that, but I was using fasting in the more general sense that the Orthodox (and even Evangelicals) use it, and that includes both what you would call “fasting” and “abstinence.” As to whether I’ve got it right, all I can do is look at official sources, which include what I linked to.

As to whether Roman Catholic fasting/abstinence practices are better or worse than Orthodox ones, well, yes, I think one can say that one is better than the other, but not on the grounds of Orthodoxy vs. Roman Catholicism, but simply on the grounds of Roman Catholic fasting/abstinence tradition itself, which was solidly almost identical with Orthodoxy for nearly its whole history until recently. So if we discern what it is now in comparison with what it was not so very long ago, one would think that any serious Roman Catholic would himself find it wanting. Indeed, I know many who do and who choose to delve more deeply into their own tradition precisely for these reasons. The point is not really whether one is “better” or “more difficult,” but rather whether one is being faithful to Christian tradition. To set love in opposition to such things is also a departure from Christian tradition (and it’s a Pietist departure, at that).

It is manifestly the case that Roman Catholics have departed even from their own tradition in this regard—and I don’t mean 1000 years ago, either, but relative recently (20th century), else there wouldn’t still be the memory of pancakes and Mardis Gras on Shrove Tuesday. After all, what’s the point of using all that stuff up on Tuesday when one is just going to have it again on Thursday?

But I will let Roman Catholics work that out for themselves whether that is the direction they wish to continue going. After all, none of it was particularly my point. I was speaking of how Evangelicals are appropriating Lent, and, like it or not, it’s the “giving up candy for Lent” Catholic who is their first witness to such things.

As for the actual obligation, you don’t have it quite right. We distinguish between fasting (one meal with two snack-like meals) and abstinence (refraining from meat) Those between the ages of 18 and 60 “officially” fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday only. I’m already beyond age 60. Everyone above age 13 abstains on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays of Lent. And I agree that’s rather puny compared with the Orthodox discipline. Is it right to say one way is better than the other? I would say the Orthodox practice is more difficult. Does God look more favorably on those who do things that are more difficult or is it the love with which we do them that matters? St. Therese of Lisieux and Blessed Mother Teresa both suggested a way of spirituality that emphasized doing small things with love. And I find that very challenging.

(Related: SNYP = “Sorry Not Your Priest,” used by clergy online when asked for private pastoral advice by people in distant places.)

As for what American Catholics themselves experience and do for Lent, my own anecdotal experience with them has been all over the map on this, but the majority largely do not seem to fast very much, if at all. For two years, however, I did have a Roman Catholic roommate who fasted in an essentially Orthodox manner for the whole of Lent, but he (in his self-effacing way) also indicated to me that what he was doing was exceedingly rare. I have found his evaluation to hold true for most of the Roman Catholics I have known.

And of course the actual “obligation” (to use the technical term) for fasting for Roman Catholics is only for eight days (Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and all Fridays in Lent) out of the forty, and it is only from meat. So one can see in that pretty stripped-down structure (as compared with the older traditions of Roman Catholicism) how the average Roman Catholic, wanting to do something that will last for the whole season, would also try to “give something up.”

As to the section you quoted from my piece, that is not compatible with Roman Catholic theology, which does not acknowledge that God has both Essence and Energies, and certainly therefore does not admit the possibility of union with the Energies. There is only the doctrine of the Beatific Vision, which is something rather different from theosis.

In any event, my point was not really about what Roman Catholics are doing, but rather about what Evangelicals are getting from their Roman Catholic friends.

The practicing Roman Catholic views Lent as a penitential season in which calls for conversion of heart through more intense prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It doesn’t mean that is the only time one prays, fasts, or does charitable works. But the extra emphasis on these practices is for the sake of purifying oneself spiritually for a deeper relationship with the Lord. The whole idea is “becoming more receptive to the free gift of divine grace, so that we can become by grace what Christ is by nature, so that we can be united to God in His energies, becoming partakers of the divine nature.”

May your Lenten journey be fruitful.